A whole while ago we reported on Skyrim for the Xbox 360 was not getting Kinect support (and looking back now, it indeed didn’t). We received mixed reactions based on that article and many people thought that a game like Skyrim would never work with Kinect. Fortunately there is one man in the industry who does think that a game like Skyrim with Kinect is a good idea, and this one man is kind of a big shot!

Cliff Bleszinski and Skyrim

Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski, the guy that made the Gears of War series and the guy that seems to be a big supporter of Kinect (although hasn’t made a game with it yet) thinks that Skyrim with Kinect support would actually be a good idea! In an interview with OXM he talks about hardcore gamers and their relation with Kinect. He acknowledges that the two don’t really go together yet but that time will definitely heal this relationship. To quote him:

It looks like Microsoft’s really experimenting with how to have more core games for Kinect. Rise of Nightmares, that was an interesting step, Child of Eden and things like that. I think we’re going to continue to see games like that – I’ve always said that I wanted to see the hybrids, you know?

I want to play Skyrim and cast my spells using my hand or maybe occasionally doing some other strategy things in other types of games using hand gestures or voice and do an integrated Kinect experience that has both, that’s the thing that excites me the most.

It seems that Cliff is all for the hybrid hardcore games that provide an additional gameplay element to hardcore games by means of the Kinect sensor. And I think he is right! After having put countless hours into Skyrim already I think that even tiny elements like gestures or voice recognition would have made this game so much better. Those who played this on the Xbox probably have run into the problem of not having enough “hotkeys” to quickly change equipment. Kinect could help with this: Just allow certain equipment-sets to be ‘hotkeyed to a phrase you say”. If you would for instance hotkey your healing set to the word “healing” and your damage set to the word “attack” you could change equipment in an instance! It would help the game so much!

Gears of War Kinect

Going from Cliff’s reaction to Kinect I’m still pretty confident that he will make a Gears of War game that has Kinect support. It will probably not be full Kinect, but instead will cleverly use the Kinect sensor to enhance gameplay elements and make the whole game an overall better experience.

We wouldn’t put it and tack it in. You’d have to make a game that was the Gears experience that is tailored for Kinect

In the interview he talks about that Kinect support has to be kept in mind from the very beginning of development and thus might actually be included in the next Gear of War game! Only time will tell.

“Oh, by the way, I lied when I said there wasn’t a Gears Of War Kinect game in development and that rumoured Gears Of War Exile is actually a Kinect game!”

😀

Corellianrogue

What he says sounds great to me. I don’t understand the people who are against hybrid games. “You are the controller” is a slogan not a law, lol! Maybe it should have been “You are a controller” instead. The fact is that (not counting PC use) Kinect is a control system for the Xbox 360 and all Xbox 360s come with a joypad so therefore all Kinects have a joypad available to use with them if needed. Also I don’t see any reason why some Kinect games can’t have an option to choose between all Kinect controls and Kinect/joypad hybrid controls like I mentioned when I updated my Kinect FPS controls thread, since some games could be played sitting down by simply assigning a few of the controls to the joypad like walking around. (Although that’s not always needed for games that can be played sitting down, since Fable: The Journey can apparently be played sitting down even while walking around in the game.)

Eyetoy2008

I hate hybrids, i sold my controller and i don’t like using controllers anymore, unless its kingdom hearts/final fantasy.

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